Put two cool branded products together – Motorola mobiles and Oakley sunglasses – and what do you get?
A pair of daft glasses more likely to bring forth guffaws of laughter rather then the intended gasps of admiration, that’s what.
Oakley’s new RAZRWIRE sunspecs feature a bolted on Bluetooth module which converges the sun-filtering UV-free lifestyle experience with, err, a phone.
Cos Lykos, vice president of business development at Oakley, set off several Hyperbole Alerts as he gushed wildly about the product: “RAZRWIRE’s fully integrated design takes advantage of the world’s best eyewear and wireless technologies to give freedom of life, movement and communication anywhere and everywhere you want to be, so now seeing and hearing is believing.”
If you’re excited by the prospect of wandering about talking into your sunglasses looking like an arse, we can report that RAZRWIRE specs includes a Motorola Bluetooth module, supporting Bluetooth 1.1 and 1.2, with a range or 30 feet (10 metres).
The Bluetooth box clamps on to one of the arms of the sunglasses and sports volume controls and an answer button on its lower edge.
You’ll also be able to impress people by saying that you have to go off and charge your sunglasses, via the included wall charger or a USB port, with the device offering five hours talk time and 100 hours standby time.
The sunglasses are fashioned from Oakley’s super light O-Luminum and XYZ Optics, and will be available in early August in Cingular Wireless stores, and online at Oakley, Motorola, and Cingular’s websites for US$294.99 (~£170, ~€246).
Users in the habit of regularly sitting on their sunglasses in the pub are advised to avoid this product.
Our verdict: As cool as a heatwave!
Motorola and Oakley Announce Launch of RAZRWIRE With Cingular Wireless
Billed as the “thinnest, lightest, coolest QWERTY on the Planet”, the new Q phone from Motorola has set a few hearts pounding in Chez Digi-Lifestyles. 
There’s a Mini-SD slot provided for extra storage and connectivity is taken care of via Bluetooth, IrDA and mini-USB. 
“With the Moto Q, we’ve combined the best voice, data and design technology in one ultra-thin, intelligent, hard-working, and incredibly must-have device. Today’s office space has the potential to be any place you want it to be with Q.” 
The Moto Q is expected to be available in Q1 2006.
What with the summer in full swing, and the weather in the good old UK being as warm as it has been, I have observed some serious heat issues while using my Mac Mini.
At first, I had put it down to my Mac simply not running as well as it used to for whatever reason, but today it’s been considerably cooler because it’s rained, and all of a sudden my Mac Mini is running perfectly again. 
After a morning of fishwife-hot rumours, it’s been officially announced that the next version of Microsoft Windows – previously code-named Longhorn – will be known as Microsoft Vista. 
Possibly because of a fear of failing to release the product in the year bearing its name, Microsoft has once again shied away from its earlier practice of releasing dated operating systems (Windows95, Windows98 etc). 
Feebly posing as some sort of independent study into the portable computer use, a recent US survey commissioned by Intel reveals that 34 per cent of respondents or their families have taken a laptop PC with them on vacation, with just over half likely to take a laptop PC on a future vacation. Oh that’s lucky … aren’t Intel involved with laptops in some way? 
The growth of compact, wireless-enabled laptop PCs [cue: another plug for Intel Centrino here] and hotspots have made it easier for globe trotters to taunt their office-bound chums back home with beach photos, as well as keep in touch with work, news, sports and grab local information. 
Of course, seasoned PC users have dragged laptops around with them for years on end, with many of the early adoptin’ cognoscenti choosing to travel even lighter by using PocketPCs/smartphones for keeping in touch while away from home. 
The rurmour mill continues to hum with speculation that Apple are set to introduce a video playing iPod-like device in the near future. 
This has led to speculation that the company will be revising the iPod to create something like the ‘vPod’, a concept device created by design firm Pentagram which was published in Business 2.0 Magazine in March. 
The big problem with trying to create a multimedia device is that people demand quite different things for mobile audio and video. 
The doomsayers were predicting a slow year for PC shipments, but a continuing shift to notebooks and falling PC prices have made it a bumper second quarter for the worldwide PC market, according to research companies IDC and Gartner. 
The company enjoyed big sales outside the US and remains the market share leader in many countries throughout Europe. 
Konica Minolta and Sony Corporation have reached an agreement to jointly develop digital Single Lens Reflex (dSLR) cameras. 
With Sony bringing their award-winning design expertise to the party – and their image sensor, image processing and battery technologies – we can expect some smarty-pants new product design to emerge from the partnership. 
As prices of dSLR’s plummeted, the writing was on the wall for high-end fixed-lens models, so Sony’s move into the dSLR market was not unexpected. 
“Sony has powerful devices and technologies essential for digital cameras,” praised Tsuyoshi Miyachi, President and CEO of Konica Minolta Photo Imaging. “I am extremely excited to work with Sony. Together with Sony, we will endeavour to create new value in the field of imaging through increasing attractiveness of digital SLR cameras where we are strongly focused.” 
It wasn’t that long ago that digital dSLRs were the sole preserve of well-heeled enthusiasts and the pestering paparazzi, but with prices continuing to fall, digital dSLRs are coming within the reach of the mainstream. 
In February this year, Canon returned with its cheaper-faster-more featured next generation 8 megapixel camera, the EOS350D (Digital Rebel XT) retailing for US$880 (~£503, ~€728) while Nikon’s similarly priced D50 was introduced in April. 
The rest of the specs of the camera are impressive but not cutting edge: 6.1 megapixel sensor, JPEG and RAW image capture (RAW: 3 fps, up to 5 frames), white-balance bracketing, 100-3200 ISO, built-in pop flash and USB 2.0. 
With a survey that could be described as pointless fluff at best and patronising drivel at worst, Vodafone D2 have trotted out the details of their ‘Women and Mobile Phones’ market research survey. 
Neatly half of women use the camera on their phone with 37 percent of respondents citing the provision of Bluetooth for wireless data transfer as important.